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Novelty is Overrated

I understand that innovation is critical to survival of many giants in various industries, and Apple/Samsung/Google are just three classic examples of it. However, I can’t help but wonder that often novelty doesn’t live up to its hype and good, old things are routinely replaced by the newer items which are sadly inferior.

How many times have we seen a great restaurant or coffee house go out of business to only be replaced by an “upscale” boutique or an over-the-top restaurant that makes the neighborhood so much less welcoming and warm?

How many of us miss the older models of certain cars, wishing that we could get a brand new car of that older prototype?

The same applies to running shoes, tennis racquets, and many other common items. Adidas Barricade I’s were better tennis shoes than the four subsequent models, so they went back and started making the original Barricades again – over 10 years later. Sampras’ Pro Staff 85 is still considered one of the best tennis racquets ever made. No wonder Wilson went back to making this classic again.

I wish our economy worked in such a way that would allow the production of something that was clearly done right to continue and become classic rather than necessarily be replaced by something inferior.

I wish there was a way to leave the current I-phone alone and not make any changes to it. It works just fine the way it is. It doesn’t need to be bigger, smaller, thinner, thicker, faster, or have more memory.

I wish no more apps were designed, at least for a while. We have enough and we could use a break.

I wish we stopped paying that much attention to that which is cutting edge, and took the time to appreciate that which has established itself as just good for so many years, without trying to displace it with something, just because it’s newer.

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2 thoughts on “Novelty is Overrated”

Novelty is overrated and influence is underrated. Today their is a type of glorifying of scribbles , with really a limited underlying structure (or complexity), and really no influence in style. People want to be different , without regards to the function of their differences.